


Drift

by bookhousegirl



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Chatting & Messaging, Flashbacks, M/M, Pining, Pittsburgh Penguins, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-16 18:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14171052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhousegirl/pseuds/bookhousegirl
Summary: “First rule of bye week is no talk about bye week,” Geno had agreed with a shrug and a tap to the side of his nose, after they listened to Horny explain this year’s version of the game following their last team practice. He kind of doubted that Geno knew what any of those things meant, but it made him stop and smile for a second.“I bet you fifty bucks that I can guess where you’re going,” Sid challenged.Pens bye week 2018. Sid goes to a cabin. Geno goes to Miami. Somehow they still manage to find each other.





	Drift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eafay70](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eafay70/gifts).
  * Inspired by [And It's Dark in a Cold December (But I've Got You to Keep Me Warm)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13387518) by [eafay70](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eafay70/pseuds/eafay70). 



> eafay70, I hope you like this remix. I'm really glad I got assigned to you, because this was so fun to write! 
> 
> Thank you to the mods for running this challenge. To my friends mumble and glatisant, you are the best lineys ever! Thanks for the beta, and for reading this and letting me go on and on about this in our own decidedly-not-Penguins team slack. And to my friend and go-to Pens source, Snickfic, for giving this writer all the Sid/Geno info and advice I could possibly need to write a hopefully decent fic, I couldn't have done it without you, especially that ending. <3
> 
> Thanks to those who read this, I appreciate it so much.

***

On the first morning of the bye week, well before the sun broke, Sid loaded his truck with a backpack stuffed full of clothes and a soft cooler and headed north on 79. The road was entirely deserted, save for a few truckers and the stray passenger car. Six hours later, he was east of Rochester, almost to Syracuse, with only a quick bathroom break and a stop for a half caff and Timbits.

 

The messages on the team slack started rolling in then, in accordance with the carefully designed and monitored protocol set by the Swedes. No one was to talk about bye week plans until noon on the first day, and then, only non-descript pictures for the initial few hours, so that they could all have fun chirping and guessing. Sid privately thought it probably wasn’t the best product to ever come out of Sweden, given meatballs. And Ikea. But as a captain he was encouraging. Mostly it mystified him, though - the purpose, the adherence to the rules. What about the people who were bye-weeking together? Why was this fun?

 

“First rule of bye week is no talk about bye week,” Geno had agreed with a shrug and a tap to the side of his nose, after they listened to Horny explain this year’s version of the game following their last team practice. He kind of doubted that Geno knew what any of those things meant, but it made him stop and smile for a second.

 

“I bet you fifty bucks that I can guess where you’re going,” Sid challenged.

 

Geno grinned and shook his head. “Can’t guess, Sid. Not yet.” He pulled his phone from the pocket of his track pants and started to make a show of pressing the keys and typing things in.

 

Sid rolled his eyes. “What are you even doing now?”

 

“Message travel agent. Change flight?” Geno looked at him with mock innocence and then they both started laughing. “Have good trip,” he whispered in Sid’s ear, and he grabbed Sid’s shoulder for balance when he slid by. “Talk soon.”

 

Sid momentarily forgot what he was supposed to be doing, as he watched Geno make his way around the room to say goodbye, with high fives for Shearsy and Muzz, and a quick hug for Phil. “Snap out of it, man,” Tanger said then, with a look, and Sid had glared and headed to the showers.

 

So, he dutifully took a picture of his hand balancing a cup from Tim Horton’s against the gray vinyl of the truck door, and made sure that nothing in the shot was a dead give away of his exotic western New York location before sending.

 

 _Timmy’s, come on it’s like you’re not even trying,_ wrote Tanger, who had sent his shoes propped up on the metal arm of an airport seat.

 

 _That could literally be anywhere,_ Jake informed the group, which Sid knew was false, thanks for playing Jake, and Jake’s blurry picture of his walk-in closet.

 

_Like bird on lamppost._

 

That one was from Geno, and Sid barked out a laugh. He squinted and used his fingers to enlarge the area of the lamp post. Sure enough, a brown bird had perched on the top of the saucer-like light, and Sid’s photo caught the bird, wings spread, as it was about to fly off.

 

 _Thanks G,_ he tapped out in a DM.

 

Wherever he was, Geno hadn’t sent a picture yet. But he returned Sid’s message right away, like he was waiting for a chance to respond. _Have good days off Sid._ Sid smiled at his phone, probably with the same look that inspired Tanger to chide him in the locker room.

 

Four hours to go. The sun, if there was any more sun, was obliterated by flat clouds the color of ash. I-81 north to the border opened up before him, desolate and drab, with only an occasional farmhouse or dairy pasture to break the monotony. On the radio, he skipped past all the stations of country and religious country and folk country, and settled on a channel playing classics and oldies. Somewhere, at the edge of an ocean, the Beach Boys were singing about endless summer in perfect harmonies.

 

***

 

It was late afternoon when Sid finally arrived at the cabin, after stopping at a diner in town to get a club sandwich and onion rings for dinner.

 

The woman who rang him up was kind and polite, the sort of local that could be found in towns like this, in western Quebec, straddling the activity of ski country and the placidity of the Gatineau River. She was listening to her purple iPod with one earbud in and the other dangling in the pocket of her kitschy apron. “A podcast, just for when it’s slow,” she explained. Her name was Marlene and her eyes crinkled when she whispered, “Good luck for the rest of the season,” and slid his credit card back to him, as if she was keeping his secret from the twenty diners whose heads all turned as he walked in.

 

“I love podcasts,” Sid said. “If you have recommendations, I’ll take them. And let me know if you want any.”

 

Her laugh was hearty, and surprised. “Oh I will,” she promised, and bagged up his order.

 

He ate the sandwich and fired up his laptop and puttered around stocking the small fridge with the few items from his cooler. On the windowsill in the kitchen, a bunch of pink bellflowers he had stashed in a mason jar last summer, crumbled to dust in his hand. He found a trash bag under the sink and washed out the jar. There was a paper to work on, for his online class about World War I, but five minutes had ticked by and he was still standing there, holding a dishrag.

 

More pictures trickled in on slack. This time Tanger’s photo showed a gold brocade curtain and a flash of dark hills against a sliver of the clearest, brightest sky. _Vegas,_ everyone collectively groaned. The Swedes were in Miami, Hags’ contribution being a picture of a neon palm tree and Horny’s a neon flamingo.

 

Geno finally posted one. A lounge chair on a pool deck, and an orange drink with frothy topping and one of those pastel paper umbrellas. His long leg was visible out of a pair of very short, very white bathing trunks, and Sid’s mouth went a little dry.

 

 _Geno! You’re here too! Come hang with us!_ Hags wrote.

 

 _No! Come to get away from you!_ was Geno’s typically crabby reply.

 

Of course Geno had gone to Miami. Sid would’ve won that bet, easy.

 

“Why do you like it there so much?” Sid had asked once a long time ago, when they were not exactly fighting about it, but also not _not_ fighting about it either. They lay tangled together in Sid’s flannel sheets, and he had never felt so warm despite the dark and cold outside.

 

“Sunshine, big trees. Ocean, you know.” Geno shrugged in that noncommittal way he did with the media sometimes. “What’s not to like?”

 

“It’s not quiet. It’s busy, all the time.”

 

Geno propped himself up and stared at him and finally shook his head. He said, “It’s not lonely either,” and that felt like a dagger, felt like there was something not being said, so Sid rolled off the bed and started the shower. When he came out of the bathroom to see if Geno wanted to join in, he found Geno with his eyes closed, his breathing slowed, asleep in a rare patch of sun.

 

It was snowing lightly now, just wisps of flakes across the windows. The wood delivery had come, and Sid gathered a few logs from the pile on the deck to start a fire. Being able to make something here, even if it was just a fire, was one of his favorite things about the place. It took effort, and Sid liked effort.

 

At the edge of the driveway, before the the gravel changed to frozen ground that led to hiking trails in the summer, strewn with wildflowers and mossy green tree trunks, a wild rabbit lingered on the snow, unblinking. Sid snapped a photo and posted it before he changed his mind.

 

 _Ahhhhh! Enjoy Vail!_ Olli messaged, and the team followed with similar excitement. They always thought he was in Vail. Sid didn’t mind. He wasn’t going to bother to correct anyone. He pulled a pair of thick wool socks out of his backpack, which had overflowed in bursts on the bed, and put his feet close to the fire. In the warmth and the dark, he started to doze off when his phone chimed with a notification.

 

 _You there?_ Geno asked in his DMs again.

 

_Sure what’s up?_

 

_Don’t get too lonely Sid._

 

Sid stared at the message so long that the black letters against white background started to blend together into an indiscernible string. _I won’t,_ he promised, a familiar hollow feeling in his chest. He was private, yes, and tremendously conscious about his public appearance, of course. And he hated keeping secrets, especially from Geno. He hated having to force down every natural impulse, and instead be cautious around the person he had been waiting for, for so long. Though Geno somehow saw through him, every time.

 

On the ice they were called the two-headed monster, but in life, no one made him feel so fragile.

 

***

 

In truth, Sid had thought about it at least five or six times back then. It was almost a relief when Geno finally called it off.

 

“Better as friends,” Geno had said, seriously, pulling his chapped bottom lip in and out of his front teeth. “Best teammates.”

 

Sid nodded and agreed. “Best teammates,” he replied in a watery voice, and he didn’t care whether he had planned to do this next week or next month or next season, it hurt like hell.

 

“The person you’re with when you’re nineteen isn’t the person you end up with. Everyone knows that, kid,” Colby informed him with the kind of grown-up authority that sometimes drove Sid nuts. “You change too much. You won’t be the same person ten years from now.”

 

“Right,” Sid nodded along, diplomatically not mentioning that Colby met his wife when he was still in juniors. “But it’s Geno.”

 

“I know, man. And that’s why it sucks now. But it’s for the best.”

 

Still, Sid couldn’t help feeling like that notion was not made for them. Most people didn’t stay with the person that they fell in love with, that early in life. Fair enough. But most people also didn’t see that person every single day for nine months, for the next twelve years. Most people didn’t grow up together the way that they had, with what they had. The joy that ran as deep as the pain, the bruises that formed, and stayed, and disappeared, only to be made anew - he knew those things for Geno, the same way Geno knew he was lonely from seeing just a picture of a small rabbit in the twilight and snow.

 

Forever was a ridiculous concept, except for maybe the pyramids. But Sid didn’t think it was so ridiculous, even at thirty years old, to believe that his own version of forever might still mean one thing. One person, really. They tried, and they didn’t work once, long ago. When they were practically babies, when they were naive and felt a heady rush of longing, or maybe _belonging,_ when they were together. If a river like the Gatineau could be formed through single drops of rain that became a stream, running down a mountain slope miles away, if the pyramids were still standing, he and Geno, they could be something yet.

 

The first time they were here, Sid was fumbling and unsure. He felt way older than he was, making almost a million dollars, playing in the NHL, alone at a cabin in Canada with his boyfriend. But so much younger too, having never done this. Any of it. He felt brave, furtive things when he looked across the room and somehow Geno smiled back.

 

Geno had been so careful and so good, and he found that instead of blushing and stammering about sex, the next morning he knew how to ask to be fucked when he woke up hard. Not only that, but Geno made him beg for it, with Sid stretched out on his back, his hips canted upward, his dick flushed and pink and aching with want. Afterwards, they showered, but the bed still held the smell of them, the sheets still contained the scent of sex and sweat and something so intoxicating that Sid was ashamed with how turned on this made him, as he tried to tidy up.

 

He had taken Geno’s hand and led them down one of the paths to the river, where a thin sheen of frost still glittered the ground. The tree branches hung low, heavy with spring-like moisture, even though it was summer in other places in the world. A small deer, not expecting people, darted in front of them before disappearing into the forest. Together they listened to the sound of the water, thick with a slow thaw. When Geno leaned in to kiss him, Sid knew that he belonged to this place, long before he would ever own it.

 

***

 

Their back and forth through the years was not an intentional thing. More a product of having known each other deeply and wholly when they were young, a touchstone in a formative time, that now occasionally pulled them into a current that felt warm and familiar, like slipping into a jacuzzi when his back felt sore.

 

Sid always thought there would be an accidental screw up, a messy, nostalgic makeout, a night of drinking and reminiscing, and he could transition that into something more permanent. When they drank out of the Stanley Cup together for the first time, and Geno’s open mouth was so close to his as they gulped down the same champagne. When they won again, and again, and Sid went to him, on the ice in front of the world, and asked him to kiss the Cup together. When they fell into the pile for the photo, and he touched Geno’s head, held him tight, tried to let him know.

 

Every now and then, Geno’s gaze would drift towards him, and across the green of someone’s lawn during a team barbecue, or the dim space of a restaurant, Sid felt like years were erased and they were young again. Sid thought about it all the time, what it would take to get back together, and it seemed like Geno thought about it not at all, until he was standing way too close, with his nose close to the curve of Sid’s neck, and Sid wanted to lick his lips and tilt his head and see what Geno would do. Whether Geno would follow him back to his hotel room, or to the restroom, or his truck, and they could fall back into it without even a word.

 

Tanger would glare. Flower would shake his head with a hopeless sort of acknowledgement. “He’s not dating anyone,” Sid defensively reminded them. “He hasn’t dated anyone seriously in a long time. And neither have I. So what do you think that means?”

 

“That he’s getting a lot of sex from random people,” Tanger answered him, at the same time Flower said, “That he’s waiting for you, obviously,” and they both laughed. Sid shook his head, filled his plate with a hot dog and pasta salad, contemplated the sangria, with blood oranges floating on top, and the topic was forgotten until the next time he felt the focus of Geno on him from afar.

 

After Sochi, when Geno was badly slumping and wrung out with disappointment, they went for lunch at Sid’s urging, and after a lot of non-conversation, ended up back on the deck at Geno’s house, facing the trees. The air was brisk, snappy and bitter, but Geno didn’t seem intent on inviting him inside.

 

“What you really want, Sid?” Geno had asked him.

 

There wasn’t a good answer for that, not now anyway, so Sid said, “It’s not always going to be like this. You know that.”

 

Geno made a ragged noise and his whole body drooped. “No medal. In my country. Lose so bad in playoffs last year. Who even knows, you know?”

 

Sid stared at him and tried to get him to look, but Geno refused. He could be really fucking stubborn, his hands shoved into the pockets of his fleece vest, probably balled into cold, angry fists. “There’s lots of good stuff ahead for you and me. I’ve never been more sure of anything, okay?”

 

“Okay, fine, Sid,” Geno said, and he sounded very flat and very unconvinced.

 

There was a gust of wind and a deer scampered from the edge of Geno’s property line into the trees. “We saw that deer, the day after, remember? We were both really hopeful then.”

 

“I remember. Don’t need to talk about all the time.”

 

“I don’t talk about it all the time,” Sid corrected. “I wasn’t even trying to say anything about _that_. I just think, how we felt about our futures then, is worth remembering at times like this.”

 

“Sometimes hurts to think about. And I look at you and know, you definitely think about.”

 

“Does it matter to you? That I think it?”

 

“No.” Geno shook his head. His lips were pressed tightly together.

 

“Do you think about it?” he asked, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer either way. Except he was fairly sure that Geno _did_ think about it.

 

“Not going to talk about now, Sid,” Geno said, and went inside without saying anything else. Sid could see Geno’s breath hanging in the air, the ghost of their conversation.

 

We’re unfinished, he thought then. Because he knew well enough that Geno loved talking about everything and anything. He was the one to make big pronouncements to the room, he was the one who opened his heart without compunction. When Geno _didn’t_ want to talk about something, when he held back. Well. That’s when it had cut him to the core. That’s when he was truly gutted.

 

Geno was magnanimous, as always, and told everyone how much Sid had helped him during that time after Sochi. Sid was never sure what to say about that.

 

Then, after Worlds, after the handshake line, and Geno, who couldn’t look in his eyes, Sid mumbled, pathetic, insufficient things. And when he slipped out, still in uniform, to see Geno there waiting for him, he didn’t know what to say either.

 

Sid took a breath, and felt the smooth metal beam of the doorway against his hand. “I’m so sorry, Geno,” he began.

 

Geno still wasn’t looking at him. “Don’t need to try to fix, Sid. Just sad for now.”

 

Sid nodded. “For sure, G. Thanks, for coming to see me. It couldn’t have been easy.”

 

Geno laughed, a rueful and defeated noise more than anything, but it probably helped things to hurt less. “Easy? No. But still want to do, you know? What does that mean?”

 

It means we’re unfinished, Sid thought, because this is a forever kind of deal.

 

And he bought the cabin right after that, because Geno wasn’t the only one who needed to fix something somehow. He drove the desolate, tedious miles up there and stood in the driveway, facing it. Inside he made a list. A plumber for the kitchen faucet with a slow drizzling leak, and for the shower head crusted with mildew and lime. Someone to check the solar panels, remove the snow. Internet service and a wood service too, with logs stacked in neat clean rows under a blue tarp, like he had seen in Vail. Food for the mini fridge and maybe a comfortable, worn-in chair, to put his feet up while he worked his way through the stack of paperbacks he brought in a shopping bag.

 

The bed was bare, just a faded mattress with some lumpy springs, and not the lovemaking surface of his memory, not the bearskin where he was ravished all night and so in love he could barely breathe.

 

He set about making it up with soft flannel sheets and a lightweight down comforter. Not the stuff of dreams. But practical. Enduring.

 

***

 

The next morning Sid visited the diner again to pick up an omelette with tomatoes and cheddar and some fresh fruit long before many visitors made it out of bed. He perked up when Marlene was at the counter when he arrived to pick it up.

 

“So how about those podcasts?” she asked.

 

“I listened to one where these scientists tracked urban coyotes for years, and they found out that the coyotes never leave their mate,” said Sid. “Isn’t that amazing?” He thought so anyway, and had been blown away to learn that the coyotes never strayed. It wasn’t as if he had become celibate in his years post-Geno. He wasn’t a monk. But it was nice to think, that even among animals roaming wild and free, that sort of loyalty might remain.

 

“Really?” she said with a bright smile. “I never knew. How cool. I’m going to tell my granddaughter. She loves animal facts.”

 

The hands on the clock above the fireplace mantel moved maddeningly slow, tick by tick, while he tried to write his paper. The photos from slack didn’t help things. Tanger hit a bunch of sevens on a Wonder Woman slot machine. It only resulted in him winning fifty dollars, after he had spent thirty, so no one was particularly impressed. _Don’t spend it all in one place,_ he wrote, to which Tanger replied _lolol._

 

Jake had made it out of his house and posted a video of himself walking a very cute cocker spaniel. _What’s the dog’s name?_ Sid asked. _Bobby!_ Jake informed him and Sid filed that information away. _Very cute,_ he wrote back and Jake responded with a lot of smiling faces and thumbs up emojis.

 

Geno had apparently met up with the Swedes and Sid suffered through lots of photos of shirtless Horny, looking slick with sunscreen and salmon-pink, his arm draped around Geno’s shoulders while they cruised about on a catamaran.

 

 _You’re having way more fun than me,_ he wrote to Geno only and attached a photo of a glass of white wine and, on a gamble, just a small glimpse of the bearskin on the floor near the couch.

 

 _Looks fun! Romantic!_ Geno replied, and if he recognized the bearskin, he didn’t let on.

 

Sid sighed. Maybe he was doing it all wrong. He made a simple stew for dinner out of some cubed beef and carrots and onions he had brought. Against his better judgment, he checked flights to Miami.

 

The alcohol and the long, if peaceful, day crept up on him, and he was dozing by the fire again. His phone blared the song Renegades, and he grabbed it to see the picture of them in front of the Cup, captioned by Geno as “best freinds” two years ago.

 

“Hi Sid,” Geno said, so soft against the mouthpiece, like he was in public, or hiding in the restroom from Horny and Hags.

 

Sid smiled, he couldn’t help it. “Hey. What’s up?” he asked, in a soft voice too.

 

“Nothing! Can’t just call?”

 

“Well sure,” Sid agreed. “Always. But you also seem like you might be avoiding Hags and Horny right now.”

 

“Going to dinner soon, they want steakhouse with martinis,” Geno explained. “Just want to check. See how are things in your mountains. Make sure you don’t turn into troll or something.”

 

He pointedly didn’t say Vail, Sid noticed. “Why would I turn into a troll?” Sid asked, amused now.

 

“You’re right, too handsome for troll.”

 

Sid stretched out in the faded leather recliner that he bought at a second hand store nearby, when he first starting making the place his own. The wine made him feel loose and a little giddy. He picked at the frayed drawstring on the waistband of his sweatpants. “Everything’s great here. Tell me about Miami.”

 

“It’s always same, Sid. You know. Too bright. Too busy for you,” Geno said.

 

“Tell me something I don’t know, then. Tell me something I’ll like.”

 

Geno sighed, but humored him. “Go down to water by myself, before Swedes come and bother me. It’s so blue.”

 

“How warm was it?”

 

“Very warm. Squishy on my toes.”

 

Sid laughed, low and lazy, and he felt like Geno was smiling too. “What was squishy? The water? Or the sand?”

 

“The sand. It’s too soft and it’s like I’m sinking down when I walk.”

 

“That’s a weird feeling,” Sid agreed. “What else?”

 

“Eh, you know. Do a little kayak and see birds. Really pretty ones. Eat octopus last night with sauce. Delicious. You would like.”

 

“I would. You do know what I like,” he said, and then started to say, “Geno,” to apologize because that came out really flirty and forward. Sometimes it was hard to be reminded that they weren’t like that anymore, or weren’t supposed to be, when Geno was pressed warm against his thigh in a tuxedo for Aces & Ice, when Geno was like this, furtively calling Sid from a restroom in a sleek Miami hotel, choosing him over two decidedly stylish, decidedly fun teammates.

 

“Hey,” Sid said suddenly, deflecting. “Where else would you want to go?”

 

Geno made a loud snort. “Sid, we have such nice talk. Don’t complain about Miami.”

 

“No, no. I’m not. Just play along. Have you ever seen the pyramids?”

 

“Egypt?” Geno paused, thinking. “I would like that. Could ride on camels.”

 

“What would I do?”

 

“We go together? You watch me ride on camels. And probably eat stuff.”

 

Sid pushed. “We could go. Next year, for the bye week.”

 

“First rule about bye week…”

 

Sid laughed. “Okay fine. Not for the bye week.”

 

“It’s very far from Pittsburgh, I think.”

 

“Yeah okay!” Sid yelped in defense. “Got it! Not for the bye week!”

 

Geno pulled back. “Some other time then,” he said, sounding wistful.

 

There was a cacophony of cackling in the background, Horny and Hags storming the hotel room or wherever Geno actually was, in a whirl of noise and excitement. “I need steak, let’s fucking go!” Horny exclaimed.

 

“Tell me about the birds,” Sid said, hoping for one last moment. But the quiet, the ease of just them, it was already over, already being wrenched away.

 

Geno had a smile in his voice though, a big, fond one, as he said, “Go to sleep, Sid. Sweet dreams.”

 

Horny and Hags finally did wrangle Geno off the phone. The fire was dying out and Sid poked at it a few times before going to brush his teeth. When he crawled under the covers, he pressed his nose against the pillows and everything smelled like Geno, which was utterly stupid since Geno never slept on any of this bedding.

 

He was restless. Too hot, and then too cold. He tried listening to ambient noise, and then eventually wandered to the window. It was dark, and the snow was falling in soft streaks near the glass. He hadn’t checked the weather on his laptop or phone, and wondered how much they were supposed to get.

 

Back in bed, he checked his notifications and Geno had posted a photo of Horny and Hags with gigantic steaks and whole lobsters and fluttery white napkins tucked into their dress shirts. Separately he sent a picture just to Sid: an empty beach and a row of leafy palm trees. _You would like,_ the message said.

 

Sid smiled and clicked to his lock screen without replying. This was his second time being snowed in with Geno, in a way. They weren’t naked on the bearskin, tracing their names onto each other’s skin. But it still felt intimate and romantic and extraordinary. He wasn’t surprised to realize he was just as enamored as before.

 

***

 

In the morning, Sid found that less snow had fallen than he thought. He had a good dream, about floating with a giant sea turtle in turquoise-colored water, probably like the kind Geno kayaked in, in Miami.

 

He ordered another omelette, this one with sweet peppers and onions and crumbled sausage. On a whim he picked out a mug and a postcard, maybe for Geno, but maybe to send to Flower too. Marlene wasn’t there to ring him up, and instead a teenaged kid named Brandon barely looked up from his phone. He tried not to be weirdly disappointed.

 

“Will Marlene be here later?” he asked.

 

“Tomorrow morning,” Brandon told him while scoring a five thousand point combo in the game he was playing.

 

Sid drove the narrow road back to the cabin, ate the omelette, worked on his paper. He brought in another armful of wood for a fire. The little trail to the river was snow-covered and he gingerly made his way as far as he could until the snow rode up over his ankles.

 

He had already succumbed to a small cat nap when Geno called.

 

“Rough night eating steak with the boys?” he asked.

 

“Rough night drinking vodka,” said Geno, with a half-groan.

 

Sid snorted. “Oh that’s funny. I thought you were world-class at drinking vodka. The best right?”

 

“They drink Swedish vodka,” Geno complained and that made Sid laugh harder. Geno started laughing too.

 

“Why’d you call again?” asked Sid. “You’re not trying to avoid hanging out with them, are you? I don’t mind being your excuse. But you could just say no.” Geno usually didn’t have a problem saying no to anybody.

 

“No!” Geno said. “Just want to call again. Say good morning.”

 

“Well that’s nice. Good morning, Geno.” Sid knew he could tease it out of Geno.

 

Geno breathed out and Sid knew he was probably chewing on his lip now, his whole body making that shrug to play something off as not a big deal. “Think about last night, our talk. Seem like there is more to say.”

 

“Like I had something more to say?”

 

“You keep talking. Like you have something you want to tell to me.”

 

Sid sighed. “I think I do have something to tell you.”

 

“So tell,” Geno said.

 

“I’m not in Vail. I wasn’t there last year either. I figured that you already probably guessed that.” Sid kept going when Geno made a non-committal sound. “I’m at the cabin, in Quebec. You know, the one where I took you.”

 

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “Sid -”

 

“No, look. It’s not a thing. I wanted a project, and something to be just mine, something that means a lot to me. So I bought it.”

 

“You buy that place?” Geno sounded surprised.

 

“A few years ago, after Worlds. Before we won again. I thought it could be something good for me. I still need to put in the work. Do it right.”

 

“You always enamored with it,” Geno said, matter of fact and casual, like that word, _enamored,_ was something ingrained in his vocabulary, something he said all the time.

 

When the butterflies that threatened to erupt in his stomach settled, Sid smiled hard. “Yeah, I was,” he said. “Still am.”

 

“Your turn. Tell me something about cabin. Wilderness.”

 

“I went to this diner in town a bunch of times and everybody pretended not to recognize me but they totally did. I made friends with a nice lady who works there. I’ve fallen asleep in my recliner a lot.”

 

“Oh, so not skating everyday? Not watching NHL.com and taking notes on Sharks power play?” Geno teased. “Typical, Sid. Just get lazy.”

 

There were lots of things he could say, about what he was doing, that were truths and not secrets. If Geno looked hard, like the way he saw the bird on the lamp post, he would see everything. Sid felt confident that he already did.

 

“I’ve been listening to podcasts. And there’s this cool podcast about coyotes that you should listen to,” he said instead.

 

“I would like?”

 

“Yeah,” said Sid. “You would love it.”

 

“When we get back, you come over, help me download.”

 

He was about to make a smart, chirpy remark, that Geno certainly didn’t need any help downloading terrible music to his phone, and if he could figure out that, he could figure out a podcast app. But the last time he was at Geno’s was after the Olympics, and he hadn’t really been invited -  he had captained his way onto the back deck, under the guise of responsibility and team morale. Maybe it was the miles between them that made Geno feel suddenly bold enough to ask, and maybe it was the way time stretched out leisurely when on a vacation that allowed Sid to feel so hopeful about it, like he shouldn’t make a joke. “Yeah. Of course,” he told Geno.

 

“We listen together?” Geno sounded like he was smiling again, in the glow of a Miami morning.

 

Sid smiled too. He leaned back in the recliner and let his eyes close. Around him he could hear the faint drizzle of snow melt, the occasional pop of the fire and the creak in the pipes. And Geno, there, on the end of the line. “Sounds perfect,” he said.

 

***

 


End file.
